About Me

Friday

This is Bill "The Thrill" Summerhill. I am making his nickname up, but it could have applied. He was described as "one of the fastest skaters in all of hockey" and "a fine playmaker who could also find the back of the net with regularity, especially in the minors."

Most of his career was spent in the minor leagues where he was an AHL all star. He also spent a couple of seasons playing senior hockey in Toronto while serving at an army base during World War II.

For all his prolific scoring exploits in the minors, Summerhill never made the same impact in the NHL. He played most regularly on a Montreal line with Polly Drouin and Herb Cain, but his career totals of 14 goals and 31 points are nowhere near as dominant as his minor league numbers.

Summerhill - whose real nickname was "Pee Wee" presumably because he was 5'9" tall - played 59 games (plus 3 playoff games) with the Montreal Canadiens over parts of 3 seasons in the late 1930s. Interestingly he wore 8 different uniform numbers in his time in Montreal.

He later played 13 more NHL games with the Brooklyn Americans in the 1941-42 season.